Damien Hirst Delivers Controversy with Giant Uterus Sculptures at Qatar Hospital
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
Health authorities at a hospital in Qatar are braced for an outcry after unveiling 14 giant bronze sculptures by British artist Damien Hirst that graphically chart the voyage from conception to birth.
The vast open-air installation greets patients arriving at the $8bn (£6bn) Sidra medicine hospital and is the centrepiece of a modern art collection that officially opened this week in Doha. Named The Miraculous Journey, it shows a foetus growing in the womb and culminates with a 14-metre (46ft) newborn.
The sculptures were originally unveiled in October 2013 but then covered from public view until recent weeks following an outcry on social media. The official reason was to protect them from building work at the hospital.
Hirst acknowledged that the set might prove controversial when they were first unveiled in 2013. “You know culturally, it’s the first naked sculpture in the Middle East… It’s very brave,” he told Doha News.
Officials also arranged for a young boy to recite a passage from the Koran about the formation of life in an apparent effort to assuage critics.
But Layla Ibrahim Bacha, an art specialist at the government-supported Qatar Foundation, which owns most of the artwork, said this month: “We are not expecting everyone to like them. We are not expecting everyone to understand them. This is why they are there to actually create this element of debate, this element of thinking.
“We believe it reflects very much the mission of Sidra, taking care of the healthcare of woman and babies,” said Bacha. “I think it’s perfect for the location, as you can see a lot of people are taking pictures, I think it’s becoming iconic.”
Among the 65 works at the special facility for children’s and women’s health are pieces by high-profile international names and artists from across the Arab world, including Qatar.
A fourth-floor outpatient clinic is decorated with a neon installation entitled I Listen To The Ocean And All I Hear Is You by Tracey Emin, one of Hirst’s ground-breaking British contemporaries.
Bacha said the art was chosen with “very specific themes” in mind. “They are not meant to be decorative, they are meant to be more creating debates, helping with the patient to keep calm,” she said.
Syrian artist, Jaber al-Azmeh, whose pictures hang in the hospital, said it made him smile to imagine his photographs on display in a place where new lives were starting.
Sidra received its first patients in January and last month successfully conducted Qatar’s first separation surgery on conjoined twins.
Energy-rich Qatar has become a major buyer of contemporary art. It is seeking to portray itself as one of the most progressive states in the region against the backdrop of a bitter standoff with Gulf rivals led by Saudi Arabia.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this article.